Angus, Ontario

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Angus, Ontario is located on the rivers Nottawasaga and Pine, beside CFB Borden, west of Barrie, Ontario and is 1 hour north of Toronto. Angus has a population of 7000 residents.

Many residents of Angus work for the Government of Canada in Borden or at Honda in Alliston, Ontario. Angus is famous for its annual Town & Country Fair held every year in August.

[edit] A Brief History

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Let us begin back in the 1830’s when Angus was a vast forest with hardly any settlers, no roads except trails through the bush, and was inhabited mostly by Indians.

In 1852, Jonas Tar Bush purchased a 200 acre tract of pineland for $100.00 and a horse.
About this time and for a few years previously there had been a great need to have a railway built north of Toronto to provide a passageway from the capital city to Georgian Bay and the upper lakes. The result of this need was that the Toronto, Simcoe and Lake Huron Union Railroad was built in 1853. In 1855 it was extended from Allandale to Collingwood following the route, with the exception of a few changes, which the Barrie Collingwood Railway occupies today. Along this route the line passed by the Pine River where a settlement had commenced to spring up and was very appropriately known as the village of Pine River. With the coming of the railway, the village commenced to grow, because it not only stood on the border of one of the finest pineries in Southern Ontario, but was also the natural outlet for wheat and other produce for many miles to the south.

Shortly after this Jonas Tar Bush and W Proudfoot joined a partnership and together they projected the future town of Angus. In 1857 a map was published which showed the town laid out with lots and streets. They also changed the name from the Village of Pine River to Angus, after Angus Morrison a director of the railway company and the first Member of Parliament for Simcoe.

It is said that when the village was first opened for settlement, the land agents offered a free lot to the first male child to be born in Angus. The reward went to the son of Mr. and Mrs. William Hewlett, who was named James Henry Angus Hewlett.

During construction of the railway, engineer Sanford Fleming noted the sandy plains of Essa Township, was the location of an old growth forest, consisting mostly of White Pine. Among the first lumbermen to come into Essa, was Walter Moberly, previously employed by Fleming to clear the route for the railway.

There were others that came to this area, not looking for lumber, as we know it, but for masts and spars for sailing vessels. Such trees were marked with a broad arrow and reserved for His Majesty’s Ships of the Royal Navy. Simcoe County and particularly the plains near Angus were well supplied with White Pine; therefore it was only natural that thousands of pieces of this valuable timber come from that section of the country. Many a good ship that sailed the seven seas spread its canvas on masts and spars cut from the plains near Angus. The essential qualifications for good masting were length, straightness and a small butt for the height of the tree. In cutting these great care was used so that they would not be broken or injured in felling. They were hauled to Angus. It would take as many as ten or twelve teams of horses drawing in one stick of timber; one team always being hitched to the hind end of the mast to steady it and swing it around corners.

Exactly to what extent the cutting of choice trees for masts and spars, from this area is uncertain, the Northern Railway did have skeleton cars for special handling these long timbers, however, in that time there was a greater emphasis for sawn lumber for domestic and American markets. By 1858 Walter Moberly had learned from his younger brother Henry John Moberly of adventures that awaited him in the wild west, Walter sold his timber holdings in Essa at a loss. From 1860 Toronto lumberman John B. Smith would dominate the lumber scene at Angus, for the next forty years.

Supplementary to the lumber industry, the manufacture of squared timber provided a great stimulus to the forest industry of this area. It was not until after the panic of 1873, that this industry was in full swing, as the American lumber market came to an abrupt end, Canadian lumbermen turned to Britain, as a market for square timber. This consisted of chopping large pine trees and cutting the bark and wood off four sides until the tree was square or nearly so. There were four operations in squaring the timber; these consisted of limbing, score hacking, crossing and finally the four sides were hewed carefully with a broad ax. The last was the most important and great skill was shown so that on well-hewed timber the surface was almost like a planed board.

When bringing in square timber and other long pieces of lumber, large wheels, eight and ten feet in diameter were used. As the lumbering gradually dropped off these wheels naturally fell to disuse. It is told how one of them eventually found its way into the school yard where it was used as a merry-go-round until someone was injured and the teacher put a stop to it.

Practically all squared lumber was shipped to the seaboard for export. In some cases it went by rail, but wherever possible it was floated to an ocean port on large rivers like the Ottawa and St Lawrence. Thousands of squared timbers were fastened together in huge rafts, on which the lumberjacks lived for days while they were being floated to sea. The timber trade from Canada reached its peak about 1881 when more ships were loaded at Quebec. To this trade, the pines from Essa Township contributed a great deal. Square timber was carried on flat cars to Lake Ontario from Toronto and other points these timbers were carried on ships to Collins Bay or Garden Island, where they were made up into rafts called Drams, often mixed with hardwood timbers. From that point these rafts were towed through the rapids of the St. Lawrence River, to the Port of Quebec.

Angus was the centre of the timber industry for miles around. Angus had several sawmills and was the shipping point for other mills as far away as Mulmur Township. It was not uncommon for ten and twelve trains of lumber and square timber to leave Angus in a week. Jonas Tar Bush built one of the first and most up to date mills on the banks of the Nottawasaga River.

As the timber was removed from the surrounding country, the land was used for farm crops and for several years there was a brisk business in shipping wheat. At one time there were five wheat buyers located in the village. With such a thriving business of timber and grain, and so many people living in and around the village, it required many places of business to look after their needs.

There were four hotels. They were:
> The Dominion House (owned by Wm. H. MacDougall)
> Bush’s Hotel (owned by J.L. Tar Bush)
> The Queens (owned by Mrs. Margaret Foster)
> The Northern (owned by Sam Foster)
> Railroad Hotel (run by Jimmie Graham)

The Village had five general stores. These were:
> J.R. Brown’s
> Alex Cooper
> J.B. Smith
> G. McLandries
> Boyes and Nelson

There were four blacksmiths in the village as horses were the only means of transportation.

Other places of business included:
> wagon and carriage shop (run by W.C McCrimmon)
> Land Agent’s Office (owned by Jonas Tar Bush)
> 2 tailor shops
> 2 photographers
> bake shop (owned by Geo. Lawrence)
> 2 farm implement agencies
> a saddle and harness store (owned by Harvey McKinley)
> 2 liquor stores
> a tinsmith
> co-operative shop
> drugstore
> flour and feed store

Dr Francis L. Nesbitt was physician for many years followed by Dr West in 1887.
The first school in the village was built in 1857. A second framed structure was erected, but was burned about 1880.
In 1866 Rev. Morley Punshon opened the present United Church as a Wesleyan Methodist Church. The Zion Presbyterian Church was erected in the same year and was opened by Rev. Alex Heslip of Alliston.
During the village’s history there have been two Orange Lodges, a Masonic Lodge, branches of the Independent Order of Foresters, the Ancient Order of United Workmen, Sons of Temperance and The Select Knights.
The village had its own racetrack which started at the river in what is now the community park and extended towards the village ending at the grandstand near the railway station.
But the village was to receive a setback by the building of railways to the south previous to 1878. The only outlet for produce from the south was by way of Angus. In this year a branch line of the Hamilton and Northwestern Railway was opened from Beeton to Collingwood. This of course cut off much of the shipping, which had gone to Angus. This year really marked the commencement of decline, not that it was all that rapid, because the village of Angus was a busy, thriving community through the 1880s and 1890s. As lumber gradually disappeared, the mills one by one closed down. As lumbering was the chief industry, anything which affected it; affected everything else. Gradually hotels closed then stores, the number of blacksmiths and other shops of various kinds also closed. The year of lowest decline was in 1901, when for a time there was no general store in the village. The only place where food could be purchased was in the drugstore where a small amount of provisions were kept.

After lumbering had disappeared, many of the tracts were turned into farmlands. Great many of these, however, were too poor for good farming so that farmhouses were often few and far between.

When war broke out in 1914 the country searched for suitable campsites. Due to their central location, accessibility, ample water supply, and the sandy nature of the soil, which is essential for good and rapid drainage; the sand plains of Simcoe County were selected for Ontario. During the war Angus was again a busy place. Its population grew; the streets were lined with quickly built stores, refreshment booths, temporary hotels and amusement places of all kinds. The village even had its own theatre. But when the war was over it dropped away as fast as it had come. In 1920, Arthur Richardson first went to Angus and got help from the people in gathering tree seed. In 1923, the Forestry Branch purchased property of its own and commenced the preset group of buildings. This plant is the Ontario Government’s only seed extracting plant and is one of the best equipped on the continent.

In 1924, the Ontario Forestry Branch planted the first trees on the plains, where years ago big timber was cut. In the spring of 1928 there was some agitation for purchasing a village reforestation plot and a park combined. On June 1st of that year a public meeting was held in the Old Foresters Hall, where two committees were appointed. Both of these committees did their work suitably and at the 2nd meeting one year after it was reported that $667.28 had been raised by voluntary subscription for these two projects. With these two projects under way, the next move was to beautify the village.

On June 21st, 1929 the Angus Horticultural Society was organized with a membership of 76. Did you know?
> Mr. Raffay once owned a Tobacco field where the Wildflower Subdivision now stands.
> The Lion’s Hall was once a bowling alley.
> The Angus Plaza was a swamp.
> The Apartment Building on King St and the building, which houses Clippers Hairdressers, were once locations for the Post Office.
> The Health Food Store was formerly McMaster’s Garage.
> Angus Village Laundromat was once Harry Smith’s General Store.
> The apartment building next to Clippers was Plaxton’s Variety Store.
> The apartment building on Margaret St was the location of the Margaret St Public School before it burnt down.